I fixed your headline:
“Air Marshals are following thousands of random Americans through airports and on planes,for no articulatable purpose.”
Last time I went through the airport in Lima there was a “gatekeeper” at the start of the line for checking in baggage. My luggage is clean, newish, I’m old, male, bearded, Tee shirt and jeans. Before I could enter the line this woman asked me a number of questions…What was my occupation, Retired. Oh, what do you do with your time, Read, Garden, Hang out with family. Whats the purpose of this trip, Family and fun. Then she asked me to describe a typical day in my life. Dear god I wanted to tell her some shit but I really think she was looking for a reason to block me from traveling. What do you do in a typical day? WTF lady! She was seemingly an employee of Latam Airlines, maybe a part of their security but this was before I even went through the security points. Has anybody else been asked to describe a typical day in your life? Had this been my return trip I would have given her much to consider from a typical day.
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Well, maybe one of the Schlingensief productions.
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I think it’s perfectly obvious how this works:
- The more Air Marshals there are, the safer we all are, if safety is measured by spending.
- Actual terrorists are very rare.
- All those Air Marshals need something to do.
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How many Air Marshals are just surveilling other Air Marshals?
Can we put them all on flights to Cardiff?
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I just assume TSA is jealous of all the publicity ICE has been getting.
Q: How many Air Marshals does it take to change a light bulb?
A: One to check for excessive fidgeting. One to check for attempting to change appearance. One to check for observing reflection. One to . . . . .
.
.
.
.
And one to change the lightbulb.
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When I was a teenager with a brand new driver’s license, and gas was only 86 cents a gallon, my friends and I would drive aimlessly around south western Connecticut. We’d pick a car at random and just follow it wherever it went. And when it got to wherever it was going, we’d pick a new car and follow it, all night long. When I told my mom what we’d been doing after awhile, she looked quite alarmed and told me to stop doing it. It never occurred to my non-empathetic teenaged mind that anyone might feel a little threatened being followed late at night, turn for turn, by a car full of teenaged boys.
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Pretty sure what actually happens is they convince you that sitting in the dark is the new normal.
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this reminds me of reading once that so many members of the communist party of the united states were on the fbi payroll as informants there was some discussion in the fbi of their taking over the central committee and leadership.
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worthy of a billion air miles
I work at an aerospace company. After an overseas business trip a US TSA rep started grilling me about whether I really worked at that company (check my import paperwork dummy). He then started quizzing me on the various aircraft the company made back in WW2, which i’d wager 99.9% of current employees couldn’t do. What would have happened had I not been able to answer?
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I’ll tell you: It rhymes with…grip merch.
This should go on a T-shirt, available in airport shops.
This sounds like he was engaged in espionage. Did you ask his security clearance?
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Hmm, they’re looking for people who look nervous, have sweaty palms, are gripping their bags, etc.
What they’ve done there is write a list of symptoms of people who are scared of flying.
Sounds like an aircraft geek to me.
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This here ^ is a buried lede. Even Air Marshalls recognize that the biggest hole in airport security is the bloody security queue.
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Chance are you wouldn’t have been able to respond to anything on the internet for one thing. And god knows where you might be disappeared to.
Yeah, really dumb. This movie alone proved that the really bad ones don’t wear goatees at all!
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I’ll be in trouble. My cold penetrating stare is a big part of my brand.
